


Wake Me Up Too (Next to You)

by Whookami



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, BFFs, Gen, Mild Steve Harrington whump, Minor Drug Reference, Steve’s unhealthy coping mechanisms, but Robin fixes that, mild sexy time references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28861215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whookami/pseuds/Whookami
Summary: In the month since the disaster at Starcourt Mall, Steve has found himself backsliding into some old habits as a means of coping. Even he knows that parties, alcohol, and sex aren’t a solution to his problems, but they’re better than nothing at all. Fortunately, there’s someone on his side that helps to remind him that things can, and do, get better.
Relationships: Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Wake Me Up Too (Next to You)

**Author's Note:**

> Another story resurrected from the Notes folder on my phone, long forgotten and ignored. Steve and Robin are the best thing to come out of season 3 without any doubt in my head. Of course, this is me writing, so we have to go through some melancholy Steve introspection before Robin even shows up. Enjoy and feel free to leave me any feedback you feel like! *nudge, nudge. Wink, wink*

Fuck. 

He hadn’t even opened his eyes yet, and already the room was spinning unpleasantly. Well, more accurately, the room was  _ still  _ spinning. What on earth had possessed Steve to drink so much last night? 

Oh, right. 

Lotus lipped creatures that had no business existing on Earth. A shit-ton of nightmare fuel that could keep an entire army battalion awake and shivering in bed for the next dozen years or so. Plenty enough reason for one almost-but-not-quite nineteen year old. 

It had been a little over a month since Starcourt Mall had been trashed by a giant monster made of people-goo, and dealing with the aftermath had made cracking open a bottle or two of his dad’s top shelf liquors seem like a pretty good idea. It had turned into a good enough notion for several weekends in a row by this point.

A faint but disapproving voice that sounded suspiciously like a curly haired kid with a slight lisp warned him that down this path lay madness. Well, madness or alcoholism. In Hawkins that sort of thing was a bit of a coin flip. Steve wasn’t particularly known for listening to the helpful voices in his head, so he told this one to shut the fuck up and let him suffer in silence like all the rest.

He waited a moment, then two more. His head was quiet except for the steady throbbing that he was more familiar with than an eighteen year old should be. Maybe. Steve had seen and heard an awful lot about college, and it sort of seemed like it was equal parts training your brain and destroying your liver. His brain was probably beyond any hope of redemption, but he still had time to make a saving throw for his liver. That would probably be a constitution check, and maybe the only stat he had an above average score in. 

A groan escaped his dried and cracked lips. He had freely, and sadly accurately, just managed to translate his real life into that nerd game the kids were always playing. Ugh, after stringing together such an apt metaphor was it really even fair for him to pretend he still didn’t know what the game was called? Absently he picked at the idea, trying to figure out if it qualified as a metaphor. 

English had never been his best subject, even if he could talk a good game. Reading and analyzing the text was just...tough. He didn’t need to be aware of the symbolism in a story in order for it to work. Why couldn’t teachers just let you enjoy a good book without having to dissect it like those nut jobs who enjoyed cutting open frogs and fetal pigs? 

Dustin was probably one of those weirdos, which only served to drive the point home in Steve’s hungover head. 

Dustin would also probably know if he’d actually made a proper metaphor, or if not him, one of the other kids would know. Well, El might not, but it wasn’t her fault. She was likely just as smart as the rest of his gaggle of teen wunderkinds, she was just handicapped by being raised by scientists and government shitlords. Max though, she’d have his back. 

The last time she’d been to his house she’d begrudgingly pulled a copy of The Great Gatsby from her book bag and opened it to an early chapter. It had only taken one look at the grimace on her pixie features for Steve to run and collect his copy of the Cliffs Notes version from the box he’d dumped his entire school career into the moment he’d graduated. Max’s eyes had been wide with awe and appreciation, and he had felt good knowing that he still managed to pull off moments of cool from time to time. 

Had he been cool last night? It used to be that Drunk Steve was the life of the party, everyone’s friend, and occasionally someone’s lover. That idea struck a sudden resonant chord in the front of his mind, alerting him to the fact that his arms were wrapped  _ around _ something. Something that was ever so slightly moving with the gentle rhythm of slow sleepy breathing. Curious, Steve experimentally nuzzled forward in bed. Well, well, well. His friendly little greeting was met with a warm body pressing back into his own, and his arms squeezed a little tighter instinctively. Perhaps the death of King Steve had been prematurely declared. 

Despite the still lurching room and the ever present pressure of an eternal drum solo echoing in the space between his ears, Steve grinned contentedly. He couldn’t rightly remember last night. He recalled raiding the liquor cabinet in his father’s study, having long ago figured out the simplest way to jimmy the lock open while leaving no trace of his illicit activities for his father to notice. Then again, his father would probably need to come home and actually stick around for more than a few days at a time to ever catch on that his bottles routinely emptied and then magically refilled themselves. They even occasionally resealed themselves, if you could catch them at a good time before the inevitable emptying portion of the cycle began again. 

He’d turned the music up loud on his back porch, several hundred dollars worth of stereo equipment blasting Queen, and Bowie, and Bruce Springsteen through the neighbourhood and deep into the forests that stretched out behind his house into an abyss of darkness and trees and the occasional lotus-faced monster. 

Usually it didn’t take the cops too long to show up and tell him to knock it off, but the entire force had collapsed into a disorganized mess since Hop had… well, since he was… Steve dimly remembered finishing the bottle he’d been holding rather than finishing the thought. They hadn’t exactly been close, but in their ragtag group Hop had been a father figure to them all. As much as Steve regularly asserted that he was an adult now, a grown ass man in his own right, some craven part of him missed the gruff police officer terribly. Steve didn’t have much experience with other adult males, mostly just his own father, and that wasn’t exactly the sort of relationship he looked forward to explaining to children of his own some day. Hop had given him something of incredible importance that James Harrington had never once awarded his son; He had seen something in Steve that he thought worthy of trust. 

Hop would probably be disappointed in Steve if he’d been watching him over this past month. Somehow he managed to fill his days doing his best to live up to his promises, to protect his kids and keep in touch with the other teens who knew about the Upside Down. They lived in the shared hope that by keeping their eyes open and the lines of communication flowing they could prevent any further tragedies from befalling them. The moment the kids were gone though, Steve’s life devolved into a weekend of binge drinking that looked like he had a personal grudge against his own body, or that he’d straight up embraced a philosophy of hedonistic nihilism. 

It wasn’t working for him. He knew that. At first it had just been to help him take the edge off and fall asleep. Next it was to help drown out the dreams that invariably tore him from his bed, his shirt and underwear soaked through with sweat and clinging uncomfortably to his flushed skin. Finally it was just to pretend that neither of those things were a problem he felt crippled by, and just allowed him to forget that Steve Harrington existed entirely. Until the inevitability of Monday morning arrived and he had to crawl through the rest of the week filled with a bottomless well of guilt and self loathing. Friday night just hit the reset button and he played out a carbon copy of previous events just with his sense of self more deteriorated than before. 

It wasn’t like he could disappear into the drink forever though. He wasn’t one of the model ships his father used to painstakingly build and cleverly slide into his empty bottles as though they’d always been there. He missed watching his dad carefully at work, painting and gluing and really rigging the tiny sails. He had promised to teach Steve to make them too, once he was older. At some point when he was eleven or twelve James Harrington had stopped making ships in bottles and had instead started sleeping with his secretaries. Whatever worked as a distraction, right? Steve supposed he’d still learned something from his old man after all. 

Was Steve a slut? It was an uncomfortable question. Carol had called him that more than once. It wasn’t exactly a secret that Steve had slept with at least a small segment of Hawkins High’s female population. It had been all fun and games and part of the path to popularity. It had been hollow and meaningless and had left him silently questioning his own value. He hadn’t stopped though. Stopping meant admitting that something was wrong. Nothing was wrong with him, he was Steve Harrington, rich and loved and the life of every party. Until he wasn’t. But he and his peers were still teenagers, and the promise of a party, even one thrown by former royalty turned social pariah, was still going to spread like wildfire through the twenty-one and under population of a small town like Hawkins. 

Steve never did much talking once people began to show up. He opened the doors, invited his guests to help themselves to his food and alcohol, and retired to his room upstairs to drink himself to sleep while downstairs the sounds of life and love and hope for a bright future filled the halls of the crypt they called his home. If anyone had even noticed how he suspiciously vanished from his own parties it had never been mentioned or investigated to his knowledge. No one missed him, or at least no one cared if they had even noticed he was gone. 

Well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true. After all, here he was in bed with someone warm wrapped up in his arms. 

A subtly sweet scent filled his senses as he breathed deeply, his nose buried against the nape of his bedmate’s neck. It was vaguely familiar, but his addled brain struggled to name the brand of shampoo. He must be more hungover than he realized. Guessing a person’s hair products by scent alone was a game Steve rarely lost. It wasn’t the most exciting party trick, but it was either that or ripping an apple clean in half with his bare hands. Once he’d tried to learn how to tie a knot in the stem of a cherry with just his tongue, but upon practicing in front of a mirror he realized it was really more creepy than seductive. This thought had only been overwhelmingly confirmed when he’d overheard Billy Hargrove brag about possessing that particular skill. 

Oh, that was it. 

No, not the stupid shit about Billy. 

Cherries. 

The scent was cherry blossom. He still couldn’t be sure of the brand yet, but the girl in his arms hadn’t so much as stirred since Steve had slowly begun to rouse himself, so he had time yet. He certainly wasn’t in any hurry to open his eyes to greet the stabbing pain of the sun. His curtains weren’t a great colour, or pattern, for blocking out the morning light. They also matched his wallpaper, which kind of made Steve feel like puking even when he was completely sober. 

Cherries and soft warm skin. A lithe body pressed tight against his chest. 

Rationally he knew it had been a month since Starcourt. It was time to stop hiding from the world and pretending he was fine. Time for the binges to stop. However, the temptation of maybe waking up to a warm body clasped tight in his arms was a compelling reason to keep the party train rolling. He was sort of an outcast these days. The drinks may be the only reason this girl had found herself sneaking up to his room for a little private time. Well, as private as you could get with a rager howling below you into the wee hours of the night. Or morning. Steve didn’t actually remember when things had begun to quiet down. He also didn’t remember what he’d gotten up to with his unexpected guest. From feel alone he knew she was wearing a bra still, or maybe again? He couldn’t tell what she might be wearing on her bottom half. For his part, Steve was just wearing his boxers and, oddly, a single sock. He absently hunted around with his toes but didn’t feel it’s partner anywhere beneath the sheets with them. Oh well, he decided, it was pretty damn warm in here anyway. He wriggled his foot as subtly as he could until he could shuck the other sock off and kick it over the side of the bed. Starting slightly at the shuffling, the girl in his arms made a small huffy noise under her breath before wiggling down comfortably, snuggling into Steve’s warmth. It wasn’t anything new, most of the girls he’d been with had always complained of being cold, and had rather gratefully clung to him like he was a portable space heater as they slept. Usually though Steve was also asleep for that part. This morning he wasn’t and his dick was all too happy to announce its own rather pleased reaction at waking up with a girl in his bed once more. Two years was quite the dry spell, and it wasn’t taking much encouragement to find himself already beyond half mast. 

As much as he tried to assert that he was an adult, it was painfully obvious that he was also very much a teenage boy. The proper thing to do would be to get up and talk to the girl he’d spent the night with, discuss their intentions and feelings, and figure out how they wanted to move forward from their current situation. He knew it was right. He knew it was definitely what he needed to do. The last thing he wanted was to be some drunk girl’s horrible mistake. They definitely needed to get some clarification here. However, he was still a horny young man with a dick that was growing stiffer and more excited by the second, and a mind still more than half asleep and combating one hell of a hangover. 

Carol had once told him that orgasms were a great cure for headaches, something to do with increasing blood flow or something (although considering where all Steve’s blood was rushing that very moment he didn’t quite understand the connection). Tommy had nodded along sagely like it was a god given truth, giving Steve a sly wink and nod. For some reason Steve’s brain latched on to that little fact (fiction? Who could really tell with that pair. They lied as easily as they breathed air) and was inclined to favour a little early morning investigating. If it turned out true then maybe for once he’d be able to show up Dustin and the brats with a scientific discovery of his own.

Oh. Ew. Fuck. 

Steve wrinkled his brow, realizing just how much he would’ve had to drink last night for  _ that _ particular thought to ever be born in his poor brain. He was happy to be the world’s biggest hypocrite and do whatever he could to keep those kids from having sex before they reached thirty. Managing the boys didn’t seem like it would be terribly difficult. Those little nerds seemed overwhelmed just by holding hands and staring with blank adoration into a pretty girl’s eyes. Max was definitely going to be the biggest challenge. Steve had heard her quote ‘facts’ from Cosmo more than once, and he knew from personal experience that the magazine often included some weirdass articles that he certainly didn’t trust in the clutches of that particular feisty redhead. He also knew that nothing he’d ever read in his mother’s Cosmos sounded sexy to  _ him _ , which he assumed meant they never actually asked any guys what they might like. 

Then again, guys also seemed a little easy to please. It didn’t take Steve much to get going, if the firm ass occasionally pressing delightfully against his erection was any indication. Yeah, he definitely wasn’t feeling particularly picky, and he couldn’t help the warm growl that rose from the depth of his chest as his hips involuntarily bucked up against his partner, the friction sending pleasant, and long absent, shudders racing up and down his spine and settling with intense want low in his abdomen. 

Steve called on the last vestiges of his will power and managed to keep his hips still after that first instinctive reaction, as reluctant as he was to do so. He propped himself up on one elbow, cracking open one eye to glance at the clock on his night table. No good. Almost everything was whited out by the intensity of the sun being amplified by the previous night’s poor decisions. He flopped back bonelessly, well, boneless save the one making a rather obvious tent over his lap, and let his breath rush out like a deflating balloon. He kept his eyes open and blinking rapidly, encouraging his sight to filter back slowly, staring up at the rough texture of the stucco on his ceiling. Sometimes trying to be a gentleman sucked. Still, this not exactly new, but certainly improved, version of him wouldn’t have been okay if he’d just kept going, even if last night he had gone all the way with this girl. Even King Steve would’ve felt like a total creep humping up on a sleeping girl, unless he explicitly knew she was into it beforehand. His standards might’ve been pretty low back then, but he did have his limits. 

Stretching until he felt his spine pop in a few places, Steve threw a hand across his mouth and yawned, sleep still clinging to the corners of his awareness like cobwebs. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he muttered in a vaguely slurred, tired sounding voice. “Still waking up. Figured I should stop, y’know, without having asked.” He turned on his hip, careful to keep his erection to himself, but wanting to a least have this conversation face to face. 

His partner groaned from under the pillow she’d crammed over her face. Looks like he wasn’t the only one to have overdone it last night, he thought a little smugly. “I cannot,” came a muffled response after a few moments of awkward silence. “I simply  _ cannot _ believe I am expected to face the day with a hangover this bad, after being woken up to your dick getting all up and friendly in my personal space, Dingus.”

Steve’s suave method for maintaining his cool and calm exterior in the face of this distressing situation was to backpedal off the bed on all fours, falling to the floor with a deafening crash before flailing around trapped in his bedsheet and managing to somehow slam his boner painfully into the ground more than once. Well, it’s not like it wasn’t already dying at an alarming rate the moment he’d recognized Robin’s grumbly morning voice. Still, it fucking  _ hurt _ , and he couldn’t help the pained wheezes and whimpers that left him before he got enough sense back to start shouting. “Oh my god.  _ Ohmy _ **_fucking_ ** _ godRobinwhatthe _ **_ACTUAL_ ** _ FUCK _ !?” Steve rambled out in one harsh breath, voice breaking pathetically on the last syllable.  _ Damn, _ did his dick still hurt. Fuckin’  _ ouch _ . Still, that was hardly the most important matter before him. “What the  _ hell _ were you doing in my bed?!” He demanded, carding his hands wildly through his hair until it stood up from his scalp like a spooked cat. 

Peeling the pillow from her head, Robin squirmed until half of her face and the first joints of her fingers were just barely visible to Steve from over the edge of the bed. “Well, I was  _ trying _ to take care of you, Dingus,” she rolled her eyes, her head shaking slightly. “Apparently  _ your _ definition of ‘being taken care of’ is different from mine.” She arched one eyebrow perfectly at him. 

Steve spluttered and stammered, able to feel the blush rising in his cheeks, could feel them burning with embarrassment. It was better than the last place his blood had made a beeline for, Steve thought with just a hint of hysteria edging into his thoughts. He was stumbling his way through about his seventh apology, maybe his eighth, when he noticed how silent Robin was, only her eyes peeking out at him from atop the bed. Steve’s jaw dropped open with a dawning realization, and with as much dignity as he could muster while sprawled out on his floor half tangled in a blanket, he pointed at Robin with an accusing finger. His brows lowered and he glared up at her. “You think this is funny!” He howled in outrage, “You’re  _ laughing _ at me!!”

The rest of Robin’s face rose into view, a huge shit-eating grin stretching her lips wide. “It  **is** funny!” She claimed between swells of laughter, flipping over on her back so that her socked feet could thump furiously against his mattress as she dissolved into hysterics. For all his shame and contrition, she seemed to think this was the most hilarious thing ever. 

“Well fuck you,” Steve grumbled, but even he could hear that his tone lacked any malice. “Be warned, if you ever like, have some kind of problem with your period and bleed all over the place, I am going to laugh my fucking head off at you.”

She snorted indelicately through her nose. “Yeah, yeah,” she waved him off with one lightly waffling hand. “You’ll be too busy going _‘ew_ _gross_!’ or some shit to laugh.”

“Hey, I respect women! I wouldn’t go ‘ew’. ...Out loud.”

Robin cackled back delightedly, knowing she’d already won the spirit of the discussion. Once her laughter had died off she sat up happily, drumming her hands against her bare thighs, her tiny sleep shorts barely covering her underwear. Steve narrowed his eyes and decided he was only noticing that fact with a sense of clinical detachment. It was like, just part of the mise en scene (a term the guffawing  _ traitor  _ on the bed had taught him), or something. Robin thankfully interjected his thoughts with a sudden excited declaration. “We should make pancakes!”

“Uh, okay?”

“You need a minute to deal with the boner I gave you?”

It was Steve’s turn to roll his eyes. “I didn’t know it was you at that point. The moment I did you can consider it immediately over. Robin Buckley: Boner Killer. Congrats.”

“Well then, Steve Harrington: Pancake Flipper, c’mon! I’m hungry and I’m your guest. Feed me, Seymour, feed me!”

“What were you even doing in my bed in just,” Steve made a vague gesture to her bra and shorts, one brow quirked in confusion. “ _ that _ ?“

Robin glanced at herself as she hopped down the stairs, skipping the last two and striding into the kitchen with way more pep than Steve was feeling. Maybe laughter really was the best medicine. “You’re a furnace, Dingus. I thought I was in literal danger of baking to death! Also, I was kinda baked last night. Someone brought special brownies.”

“Any left?”

“You really think that’s the answer right now?”

Sighing and squinting against the light slanting in through the ventian blinds over the kitchen window, Steve shook his head. “No. I’m not sure what I think is a good idea anymore. Definitely not this,” he spun in a slow half circle, indicating the generally trashed condition of his parents’ home. 

“I’m glad we agree,” she replied fondly, leaning on her elbows over the countertop, giving Steve a steady dose of knowing side-eye.

“Yeah yeah, thanks to you I know I’ve definitely worked this party thing out of my system,” he smiled slightly, comfortably distracted by the simple tasks of measuring ingredients and stirring the batter. As he carefully ladled out big spoonfuls of mix onto the grill top, Steve sighed morosely and stared out into the bright summer morning and couldn’t help but feel a nagging sense of unease tugging at the back of his mind. Something felt unfinished, like he knew the Upside Down wasn’t done with them yet. No point thinking about that now though, it was time to leave this funk behind and get on with his life. If he didn’t, he felt pretty certain Robin would just drag him along with her, kicking and screaming. There were definitely worse fates. 

With an expert flick of his wrist he flipped the pancakes and watched them sizzle for a moment before turning back to Robin who was smiling at him fondly. “Sometimes I just wish I knew what was coming next,” he mused as he plated the perfectly golden stack.

“Definitely not you!” She laughed derisively, not even attempting to cover her smug giggling. 

Steve didn’t feel the least bit of guilt when he dipped his fingers into the open bag of flour and grabbed a pinch, blowing it into Robin’s face before he shoved all the pancakes in his mouth with a pleased smirk. Around the mouthful of food he proudly announced “You had that coming, Robs.” His snickers sent little bits of crumbs flying, and okay, his tongue felt kind of burned, but the affronted look on Robin’s face was worth it. 

The batter fight that followed was truly epic and ended with them laying contentedly wrapped in each other’s arms, covered in white powder and raw pancake goop and with the type of twin grins on their faces that were shared only between those who truly loved each other. Romance hardly seemed important when they both knew they’d found their perfect match in each other, in being best friends. 

And hopefully, Steve thought with a wry laugh, nothing  _ else  _ would ever come between them.

**Author's Note:**

> Continuity Notes:
> 
> -Steve’s assessment that he’s correctly applied D&D rules to his life isn’t actually true, unless he’s psychically channeling 5e rules. I honestly just liked the joke too much to dump it even though I should for accuracy. Pre 3e Saving Throw rules were only versus magic effects and breath weapons iirc.
> 
> -There was a thankfully a version of Cliffs Notes for The Great Gatsby published in 1964. In the original draft I referenced the (1981) Canadian Coles Notes version, which definitely existed, because I own a copy. Max hates The Great Gatsby because so do I. 
> 
> -I have decided that as a drama geek Robin definitely knows Little Shop of Horrors, even if the most well known version, the movie starring Rick Moranis, won’t be out until December of 1986. Does Steve get her reference? He’s too hungover to know for certain.


End file.
